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THE SUNDERING FLOOD

the sweet remembrance of his love, and loosed the well of his tears, and he wept and wept, and might not be satiated of his mourning a long while. But when the night was yet dark and no sign of dawn in the sky, and, might he have seen it, the south-west wind was driving the rack low adown along the earth, he rose up slowly and gat his bow and arrows into his hands, and weakly and stiffly, like a man who hath been long sick, he fell to going along the river-side toward Wethermel, and his feet knew the way though his eyes might see it not. And as he went, with the wind whistling about his ears and the picture of Wethermel before his eyes, he found that life was come again to him, and he was beginning to think about what he should be doing to win some way back to the love that had been rent from him. Ever and anon, forsooth, as he was amidst such thoughts, the tears brake out from his eyes again, but still now he could refrain them better and better after each outburst, and he had no more wildness as erst, as if he were out of the world and drifting he knew not whither or why; but now he knew which was himself, and which was grief and pain.

It was but just the grey of the morning when he crept into the hall at Wethermel, and found his bed and cast himself thereon, and, all undone by weariness, fell asleep at once.

He awoke with the house astir about him, and arose and sat down to eat with the others, and was no harsher of speech than his wont, albeit he